Reframing John Thomson

“Reframing John Thomson” shifts the focus and or intent of the photographer’s attention from the main subject(s) to what we might think of as the ephemeral or the unimportant. This June I will install approximately 10 works at Sun Dog Gallery, Xiamen University. Besides the works in the gallery, I will experiment with installing these on the streets of Xiamen at strategic locations to be identified in the very near future. (Above test installation was executed 06/12/15 at the Chesapeake Arts Center studios.)

Thanks to UMBC’s Special Collection, Tom Beck and staff. Photograph fragments are from the book; Illustrations of China and Its People (1873 – 74).

John Thomson was a Scottish photographer, geographer and traveler who documented the Chinese landscape, culture and its people beginning around 1868 continuing for approximately four years.

This illustration on the right corrects the position of the selected area in relation to the original photograph by Thomson, Cheefoo Bridge, collotype.